Myanmar inaugurates telecom exchang

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Myanmar inaugurates telecom exchange from China

Myanmar inaugurates telecom exchange from China
09:08 a.m. Jan 26, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) - Telephone communication became a bit easier in
military-ruled Myanmar Tuesday, a nation with one of the world's lowest
numbers of telephones per head, with the inauguration of a 3,000-line
exchange donated by China.

Managing director of Posts and Telecommunications Col. Maung Maung Tin said
at a ceremony that the new automatic exchange was manufactured by China's
Shanghai Bell Company.

He said there were currently 225,164 telephones in Myanmar working through
523 exchanges against 66,707 in 1988. Of the total, 99,396 were in the
capital Yangon.

The phone density in Yangon remained very low at just 0.44 per 100 people,
compared to 49 per 100 in Japan and 52.61 per 100 in Singapore.

The density for the country as a whole is one phone for every 208 citizens.

The colonel said arrangements were underway to install 20,000 Code Division
Multiple Access cordless phone lines in Yangon in the near future.